TERMINATION OF PREGNANCY ACT

Mdm Claire Chiang See Ngoh asked the Minister for Health if he will consider introducing legislation to amend the Termination of Pregnancy (TOP) Act to provide for parental consent for an abortion decision made by youths between 13 and 21 years of age and what are the legal, medical and social implications of such an amendment.

Mr Lim Hng Kiang: Parental consent is not required for TOP for the underaged. We debated this issue when the Act was considered in Parliament. We acknowledge that parental awareness could enable parents to play a part in preventing the young girls from repeating the same mistake. However, it has been observed that the pregnant girls are often in a very desperate situation and likely to resort to extreme measures. If parental consent is made compulsory, some may even resort to suicide. There is also the possibility of going to unlicensed practitioners for abortion locally or in neighbouring countries with its inherent dangers of botched up operations, severe infection and death. Besides surgical procedures there is also a possibility of them taking "medicines" purported to cause abortions which may be harmful to health or be dangerous. On balance, we decided not to make parental consent compulsory.